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Ayn Rand was an enormous figure for people who were intellectuals in college in the mid-'50s and late '50s. I entered college in '64, so I never heard her name in college. She was just gone.
I never read Ayn Rand until people started to compare me to her. Since I came on the scene it has come up repeatedly--people have asked me about Ayn Rand, followers of Ayn Rand. I might be on a call-in show; they always asked. Because I was being asked so much, I went out and I read some of Ayn Rand. And I was struck. I could see what the parallels are.
That is, she was influenced by many of the same works that I was. She was reading Romantic thinkers and Nietzsche and so on. There are certain passages in her where I went, "Oh my God, that sounds like a passage from Sexual Personae." So I was really struck.
At the same time, I saw the differences. First of all, she's a libertarian or a radical individualist as I am, but she is very--like Simone de Beauvoir--contemptuous of religion. I am an atheist, but I respect religion. I respect all the world religions, and I regard them as these symbol systems, belief systems that are like poetry. I love these great mythological systems. I feel that mystical and religious thinking tells you more about the universe in many ways than ordinary prose, or even science, does.
So I'm uncomfortable with that. For both de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand religion is symptomatic of an infantile mind, or of an overemotional mind. I believe in mystery; I believe in both Apollo and Dionysus. So I think that my system is more complete.
And what else? I find both Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand deficient in humor. Comedy is my attitude toward life, and I feel that comedy is the spirit of the last half of the 20th century. The first half of the 20th century would have been the age of Beckett and Waiting for Godot and that whole bleak, nihilistic attitude toward the world that Susan Sontag is still carrying around with her like a big black hat. The attitude of the last 50 years is like that of rock and roll--energy, comedy, exuberance, the pleasure principle, improvisation, spontaneity. These are my principles. So I think I have a kind of childlike quality and playfulness that are missing from the dour adulthood of both Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand.
Also I am a little bit uneasy, OK, with the politics. I don't think that Ayn Rand is a fascist particularly, but I think there is a kind of contempt for ordinary people in Ayn Rand--a little bit. I love the high achiever, I am a great worshiper of the high achiever. But I also feel at home with people of the working class. And I think that in Rand there's a little bit of a kind of snobbish elitism about those vulgar masses out there. That makes me a little uncomfortable with her.
But I think if one is looking at parallels, there is no doubt that there are a lot. I'm very happy to be considered one of her successors, even if not influenced by her directly. And I think there is no doubt that my impact on many people is exactly like her impact on many people. That is, we came as kind of a fresh breeze into a period of conformism. She and I say to people, "Think for yourself! Don't be such a toadie! Stop going along with the group! Don't be such a sheep, just going along passively with other people!"
One would think that women's studies, if it really obeyed its mission, would make her part of the agenda. But no, of course not! Women's studies has been oriented toward rediscovering the mediocre thinker, or the writer who talks about her victimization, rather than someone who preaches individualism and independence as Ayn Rand does.
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I never read Ayn Rand until people started to compare me to her. Since I came on the scene it has come up repeatedly--people have asked me about Ayn Rand, followers of Ayn Rand. I might be on a call-in show; they always asked. Because I was being asked so much, I went out and I read some of Ayn Rand. And I was struck. I could see what the parallels are.
That is, she was influenced by many of the same works that I was. She was reading Romantic thinkers and Nietzsche and so on. There are certain passages in her where I went, "Oh my God, that sounds like a passage from Sexual Personae." So I was really struck.
At the same time, I saw the differences. First of all, she's a libertarian or a radical individualist as I am, but she is very--like Simone de Beauvoir--contemptuous of religion. I am an atheist, but I respect religion. I respect all the world religions, and I regard them as these symbol systems, belief systems that are like poetry. I love these great mythological systems. I feel that mystical and religious thinking tells you more about the universe in many ways than ordinary prose, or even science, does.
So I'm uncomfortable with that. For both de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand religion is symptomatic of an infantile mind, or of an overemotional mind. I believe in mystery; I believe in both Apollo and Dionysus. So I think that my system is more complete.
And what else? I find both Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand deficient in humor. Comedy is my attitude toward life, and I feel that comedy is the spirit of the last half of the 20th century. The first half of the 20th century would have been the age of Beckett and Waiting for Godot and that whole bleak, nihilistic attitude toward the world that Susan Sontag is still carrying around with her like a big black hat. The attitude of the last 50 years is like that of rock and roll--energy, comedy, exuberance, the pleasure principle, improvisation, spontaneity. These are my principles. So I think I have a kind of childlike quality and playfulness that are missing from the dour adulthood of both Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand.
Also I am a little bit uneasy, OK, with the politics. I don't think that Ayn Rand is a fascist particularly, but I think there is a kind of contempt for ordinary people in Ayn Rand--a little bit. I love the high achiever, I am a great worshiper of the high achiever. But I also feel at home with people of the working class. And I think that in Rand there's a little bit of a kind of snobbish elitism about those vulgar masses out there. That makes me a little uncomfortable with her.
But I think if one is looking at parallels, there is no doubt that there are a lot. I'm very happy to be considered one of her successors, even if not influenced by her directly. And I think there is no doubt that my impact on many people is exactly like her impact on many people. That is, we came as kind of a fresh breeze into a period of conformism. She and I say to people, "Think for yourself! Don't be such a toadie! Stop going along with the group! Don't be such a sheep, just going along passively with other people!"
One would think that women's studies, if it really obeyed its mission, would make her part of the agenda. But no, of course not! Women's studies has been oriented toward rediscovering the mediocre thinker, or the writer who talks about her victimization, rather than someone who preaches individualism and independence as Ayn Rand does.
Статья целиком